This invention relates in general to apparatuses for filling containers, and in particular to an assembly for filling storage containers such as vials with a fluid such as a drug.
Current methods for filling containers often have certain disadvantages. For example, a supply of a liquid drug is usually divided into portions and aseptically filled into vials for storage. The current technique is to work in a clean room or hood and use a volumetric pipette to measure aliquots into open vials and then seal the vials. This technique is relatively time-consuming and costly. Therefore, it would be desirable to provide an improved way to fill containers such as drug storage vials.
The patent literature does not successfully address this problem. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,592,948 to Gatten, issued Jan. 14, 1997, discloses an assembly for filling a single vial with a fluid sample, such as a blood sample. The vial assembly integrates the functions of drawing up of the liquid sample through an inlet tube into a storage chamber, sealing the inlet tube, severing the inlet tube below the seal, identifying the sample for later analysis, and providing sample extraction. Liquid is drawn into the chamber by expanding a collapsed bellows inside the chamber, thereby producing a partial vacuum which draws liquid through the attached inlet tube into the storage chamber. A hot knife sealing shear is then activated to sever the end of the inlet tube from the storage chamber, while simultaneously closing and melting shut the chamber side of the tube.
U.S. Patent Application No. 2002/0025582 A1 to Hubbard et al., published Feb. 28, 2002, discloses a liquid handling system suitable for drug analysis and screening. The system includes a liquid handling substrate having a plurality of channels for conducting a liquid sample in the substrate, where the channels terminate in a plurality of exit ports in an outer surface of the substrate for transfer of a quantity of the liquid sample. The system also includes a liquid storage and dispensing substrate having a plurality of separable cartridges corresponding to the channels. The system enables a method for storing and dispensing liquids including drawing a liquid sample into the channels either by vacuum, capillary action, electroosmotic flow, a minipump or any combination thereof, storing the liquid sample into the cartridge, and dispensing the liquid sample.